wander_in_neutral | Recent Entries

This is a journal of a characters owned by

crazyfurries, set in a fictional world slightly like our own but with major historical changes. If you wish to borrow references to characters or the world, ask the owner first.

You won't get the radioactive fire ants set on your that way.

This journal will also have it's entries entered randomly. Which means the story as it progresses WON'T be in chronological order. Later, when there's enough bits, there will be a chronological order post written up with links, for those who wish to read from beginning to end. Also unTILLLLllll that day when I have enough posts to actually do that, please expect me to rewrite some bits from time to time. Cause this isss a world in progress.

In the meantime, enjoy!

(sometimes for muse purposes other characters will be invited with the owners consent to play in this universe. short version, once again: ASK FIRST)

The window slid up silently on liberally soaped tracks as Tourmaline lifted it up. She paused to listen for any sign that she had been caught before propping up the frame with a piece of scrap wood. With no one the wiser to her antics, the young girl swiftly swung out from the window and dropped to the ground outside of her foster family's house.

Nuts to this. If they weren't going to do something about getting Jimmy back, she WOULD. Tourmaline skulked from the shadows of the house towards the shed where her bike was stowed away. Slowly she opened the door...and frowned when it did not open into interior she expected. "Que?"

Tourmaline Wander, (born name Joylen Pasternak August 3rd 194?, in Las Vegas, Nevada)

Granted access under the Foundling Ruling 1920: "Legally obtain all known magically capable children under the age of 13 that arrive in orphanages"

Found in the foster system of Las Vegas Nevada after a long streak of problems arising with the other children (See file: Dreamwalkers) and nightmares, numbering at least 8 known outbreaks over the past three years. Records from within the system also recorded her as being 'returned' by potential adoptive parents three times, citing that 'she was a poorly behaved girl' with 'poor manners'. At age 6, she was already showing signs of the magic getting away her in a Magic Burst syndrome, but had a remarkably stable amount of 'sight of magic' when she asked one of the Master Mages present to witness 'what the little rock person in his pocket was'. From there she was transferred to Red Rock Vaults, a smaller school that had been set to guard one of the archives out in the desert for five years. (See: Red Rock Incident, Archives Lost
recovered and copied 1961)

After Red Rock, she was sent back through the Mage School system to Linden Grove, to continue her regular education at a public school and receive magic lessons in the evenings and weekends. This is where her history of disregard for authority begins. She chafed against some of the teachers at Linden Grove for their attitudes regarding other magic species. Then upon entering her Journeyman Rite, she fled her chaperones and went into the wild. Letters back to her surrogate parent Olla are the only records we have on what took place during her Rite, which lasted from November 11th 1957 to Sept 21st 1958. She traveled to 16 states that we know of during that time, and had proven to be a valuable asset.

In 1970, she pursued her status as Master Mage through several formal challenges to the Mage Council as per tradition. After proving that she could in fact be capable of bonding to an elemental familiar, Tourmaline became listed as a Wandering Mage. A new title, one built on the initiative to pursue possible foundlings, created and headed by Counsel Chair Topaz Softeye at the time. Since then she has abided by the guidelines set for Wandering Mages, who travel the country, looking for magic youth of any species and providing them with shelter and transportation. Ms. Wander is often noted in the 1990's with finding many of the abandoned Wizard towers through out the US after one faction completely wiped out another. Since both sides suffered casualties (We were allied with the Winning Side at the time) we got rights to some of the towers for salvaging. -Personal note: It should have said something when they cared more about looting the enemy than taking care of their own dead.

Last Known Whereabouts: ??? North Dakota, coming from Pringham School down southwest.

Tourmaline Wander's Current Spell 'list'. (please note that calling this a list of her abilities annoys the shit out of this woman. Also vague naming structure much? -Clary Sage)

'Pin' This is like getting your shoes superglued to the ground for 30 seconds, which unless you're wearing shitty trainers or boat shoes, means someone is going to have their forward momentum translated into a full on concrete faceplant. Or worse, depending on the local wildlife or terrain. As far as we know, Master Wander has only performed this spell on living creatures and we do not yet have records of her attempts to use this on non-living objects.

'Grease' The other end of the spectrum, you won't be able to get a stable footing in a 20 foot radius surrounding the subject if cast wide. If cast on a single person... let's just hope that you weren't holding that knife too close to yourself.

Abilities

Passive Empathy: Master Wander can pick up on the emotional states of people around her if not shielding. Since we are in fact unable to monitor how she processes the input from this stream of emotions, we can only extrapolate that Master Wander is simply both extremely observant and intelligent enough to put pieces together.

Dreamwalking: Master Wander can wander into your dreams, very nearly literally. This advanced varient of astral projection is not unheard of, and had been useful at times. However, in this case it is not so much controlled as actively prevented whenever possible. Master Wander has voluntarily worn binding silvers on both wrists and ankles at night to prevent any outbursts since the age of 7.(...why was no one horrified by this? This is NOT something you should put a little kid through and she CHOSE THIS? WTH? -Clary Sage)

Oracular: Past or future, Master Wander has shown some fair degree of precognitive powers, more interestingly the short term powers proven in (See file: Record of Journeyman Rite 1958) (Precognitive my ass, she admitted to only getting visions of the past. ...Actually, she mentioned the future being another sense entirely in the same breath. There's a thought for when you want a chill in full summer sun - Clary Sage)

Tracking: Some would argue that 'tracking' is just a 'poor man's divination', to which many of those with the ability to track objects or people would respond in kind towards the speaker. Even from 300 miles away with just a scrap of paper from their notebook or a well-chewed pen. With enough reserves of power and tools, Master Wander has proven (There's that word again.) capable of even finding (SECTION REDACTED) in the most remote of regions, astral or physical. (Note: Astral travel is dangerous and if you wander too far outside of your aura of influence, you run the risk of not coming back. ...aaaand now the whole 'willing to wear binding silvers' makes horrible clarifying sense. -Clary Sage)

There were only going to be ten minutes more to get this right before the other girls in the dorm came back. Tourmaline was sure of it, the optional magical cooking course usually ran at least an hour and most of the girls loved it. Having opted out of it since it became optional, Tourmaline had previously just used this time to study.

How you could find someone studying in the bathroom... Tour snorted as she fumbled with the bandage she was wrapping around her small chest. She had to stare intently over her shoulder, holding onto one end of the bandage in her mouth.

There had to have been at some point a better way to do this, She thought grimly as the roll slipped out of her fingers again for the fifth bloody time. She couldn't have been the first person to think this up, binding her breasts to hide her gender. The math was all wrong for it, (people + time + sex)x(Curiosity)= TRY EVERYTHING, after all.

She bent down to see where the roll had gone under the communal sink, with it's multiple drains. Of all the thousands of years and millions of people that had been alive, someone who was bored enough would try something that was weird. They just hadn't bothered to write down the results, or perhaps there had been a library burning on that material.

Grinding her teeth in frustration as she reached for and just barely snagging the roll didn't do her growing temper any favors. As she bent back, the strips of so carefully wound bandage began to loosen to the point of falling again. "Damnit!" Tour hissed under her breath, rolling the slightly dingy bandages again to restart. This time around she was faster with getting the bindings tight and snug, but with just enough give to let her ribs move to breathe. Her hand almost had the metal clasp to the point where it could seize and hold the bandages in place when the doorknob for the dorm bathroom turned.

Her blood ran completely cold, glancing at the clock as if it had personally betrayed her. She should have had at least five more minutes! Tour tried to bolt for one of the stalls, but she was already too late as the door was shoved open by one of her dorm mates.

Both girls froze, the one in trousers with a bound chest stuck frozen in the middle of the tiled floor, and the demure flower child staring in open-mouthed shock. Then revulsion and horror passed over the other girl...Dawn 'Moonbright'...errrh. 'Something or other'... Honestly some of the last names of the mage families in the schools were like someone had thrown a badly written spellbook into a blender. She knew their first Mage Names, and really she didn't care to learn their first names.

"...Just go away, Dawn," Tour pleaded, wincing at the reaction. Well this was a fine kettle of burning fish.. "Just...just forget I'm here for the next five minutes."

"Are...are you insane?" Dawn hissed in a soft whisper, glancing behind herself for a moment before closing it behind her. "What is this??"

Somehow..after all the frustration of the last hour she just couldn't take it anymore.

"...what does it look like, Dawn?!" Tour spat out at the girl, starting to just see red. "I'm trying to bind my chest."

"Whyyyy?" Dawn squeaked, gesturing helplessly at everything in front of her. Why was Tour doing this? Why was she here? Why to everything really.

"Because...Because.." Tour snorted, trying to keep her temper in before turning back to the mirrors that lined one wall. Dawn was going to tell, she knew it "Because I'm desperate! How's that for an answer?"

"You have to stop," Dawn said, in hushed tones, looking at the door before turning to see Tourmaline at the mirror again, trying to finish the binding. For a moment, something seemed to light through the girl before she darted forward and took the metal clasp out of Tour's hand. "If you clip there with the grain, you're not going to have enough give to breath if you have to run or exercise."

Tour paused, something flickering in her eyes as the question rolled through her head. An image of Dawn tending to the chest bandages of another, much larger and muscular girl. She recognized the tight braids the bigger girl wore as being Bearhug's usual hairstyle. Bearhug was one of the girls who had gotten the scholarship for extraordinary abilities, in magical metal smithing and fighting.

There had been a reason that she hadn't gone to the blacksmith girl for advice on this... Tourmaline winced as some of the bandages were adjusted and pinched for a moment. Bearhug was a great girl and a complete sweetheart who would have helped in a heartbeat. She just couldn't keep a secret to save her soul. Why had that image come to her? Actually...that image...what was Dawn doing with Bearhug like that? Bearhug could do her own bindings easily enough... There'd been that time when one of the highly strung wires of sculpture she'd done for arts credit had sliced her whole shirt wide open down the front and half the bandages too, and all it'd taken was five minutes, a new clean shirt and a box of bandage rolls and everything was well again.

Bearhug didn't need Dawn to help remove bandages like that... Tour felt a blush creeping up her face as the thought spread. If this was real then damnit, why did visions make her peek into people's personal lives so damn much? Dawn and Bearhug's lives... Could Dawn keep a secret?

Three can keep a secret if two are dead. Tour felt those words echo somewhere in the back of her head, resonating in her bones. "...Dawn?"

"I know what I'm doing, Tour."

"It's not that." Tour took a few breaths in and out experimentally, deep and thick. This was a hell of a lot better fitting she had to admit. "...I can't ask Bearhug to show me how to do this."

For a moment Dawn looked completely puzzled for a moment, which passed quickly enough. "Why are you doing this, Tour?"

"...the only way to get a scholarship is to show extraordinary talent. I'm not gonna find that in the group Journey."

"...I want to talk you out of this." Dawn said, after what had seemed like a monumental pause, squinting at Tourmaline a bit. "I mean you of all people would have the sense to be afraid...after what happened with Red Rock-"

"What happened with Red Rock was that some politician was playing witch hunt and some misbegotten jackass thought he could get some glory by pointing him at us." Tourmaline snarled quietly, wanting to punch Dawn right about now. This girl didn't know a damned thing about what happened there! "Now..thank you for helping with the bandages, if you'll excuse me I have to put a night shirt on before anyone else sees me like this!"

"Tour!"

"What??"

"...you shouldn't sleep in it. I'll help you with binding tomorrow night..." The other girl in the restroom rubbed at the inside of her elbow, nervously. "...maybe on the night before she leaves..Bearhug can show you how to do it yourself."

"...I'd like that."

"Aaand I won't tell her about you."

Tourmaline snorted after that, feeling cold and naked now in the bathroom, even clothed. Hearing someone else's secrets...or seeing them..always did that. How often were her own secrets exposed when the visions came and went? "Thanks."

With that, she darted back into her dorm room and hastily went about dressing herself and hiding the trousers under the covers of her bed before getting out a book to pretend to be reading by starlight. Even as her feet were tucked under the sheets, she could hear the gabble as the other girls started filtering into the dorm, gossiping as they usually did about who was seeing whom, whom was so dreamy...

It was an effort not to roll her eyes at this nonsense but what had to be done often needed effort. Her roommate of the last year had come to a sort of weirdly silent agreement that they would do their best to ignore each other. Unless it came to contraband. Bindweed was the sort of girl who came from one of those middle-class suburban mage families and was never afraid to flaunt the privileges it allowed her access to.

Tourmaline privately believed that one or more of Bindweed's parents had a few ties to the black market on magic items. When the dorms had been cracked down on for abusing no-see-ums and most adults went out with a major all-seeing ointment around their eyes when they did bunk checks.Tourmaline got away clean. The rules were you couldn't use no-see-ums inside of the school grounds, or get caught making them outside of a class. You had to be fair though, Tour mused to herself. You can get em at the start of Journeymans.

No, what'd happened was that she hadn't been selling no-see-ums. One of the first things she'd learned out at Red Rock was how to make Mouseskin talismans. Bindweed paid for a few of those things every month and smuggled them back to her family. When she'd come back it'd be with a grocery list of goods, usually half of which was stuff that Tourmaline ordered for building her magekit. It was a neat arrangement and this month was going to be the last transaction. Somehow the thought of never having to haggle another deal with Bindweed made Tour smile.

Tourmaline stared at the backpack that had been lurking in the back of her school locker for the last three months. The phrase 'now or never' was running laps with '' and 'I can't be considering this' inside of her head. Two years ago had been when the research into possible routes had begun. If she wanted to be a full adult mage and access all of the education that it could provide, she had to undertake one.

No one was going to sponsor her though, at least not into anything important with her skillset, Acedemic, save for Olla. The half-giant woman was sweet and did put her savings away but...she wanted Tourmaline to go Hedgewitch. To be pounding medicines and poultices and cremes that hardly anyone outside of Mage schools or the magic creature community bought at all. Or carving charms that had just about the same range. Or being the social worker for the nearest magical enclave, she'd showed painfully over-powering empathy with surrounding students often enough. Some teachers too, the ones that didn't take shielding seriously really took special care to learn after having spent just one class with Tourmaline. It was the way she knew exactly how to verbally rip something or someone apart. Especially if she was being forced to take the remedial class for 'model citizen behavior'.

This would be SO much easier if she'd just displayed some kind of elemental talent. There were scholarships out there for those kids through the system, ones that actually took care of the materials too! But no, not in all 10 years of having lived at Mage schools, first Red Rock Vaults in Utah, then here at Linden. Never once had she shown anything more than control the most rudimentary form of magic use. Classmates could easily build images out of fire, or float entire reams of paper, piece by piece into the hands of instructors. Teachers had said she proved to just be an Academic with a tendency towards accurate 'visions'. Visions which came and went with no damned context unless she talked to someone about them. Seeing spirits wasn't going to be useful either, as things went. People outside of the mage schools didn't care if you could tell that their fields were dying out because the earth spirits were booking it out. No, they'd just pump the soil full of more fertilizer and pesticides.

On top of that she was...biologically female. Without a Journeymanship that lasted for at least six months, the best job that could be hoped for was 'fortune teller in the back of the flea market'. Or nurse. Or receptionist. Women couldn't hold important titles outside of the Mage School system, and even inside of that system you had to show extraordinary skill. That was according to the texts that were in every school library at least, but not specific about the kind of skills you needed to actually pass. What was clear was that in order to become a Master Mage and get a job within the system, you first had pass into Mage and for that you either needed to prove you had the elemental raw power to qualify or you needed to pass Journeymanship. Most people didn't bother with the trip these days, in fact over half her graduating class wasn't going to bother with it.

The girls would do the token trip together as a group and if one or two were sponsored, they'd be doing so in mild luxury with a chaperone. And there was a max limit on each group of seven girls, since you couldn't fit more than that into one vehicle for hours on end. 9 people if some of the chaperones and Journeyers were family. It would be six months of traveling with friends to different sights and having wonderful experiences; six months of barely tolerating people you had absolutely nothing in common with and barely knew; or six months of straight up hell with the girls who hated you for 'getting things right' all the damned time. Three cheers for bad luck when the group listings had been posted this past Lammas, because that was the kind of group she was stuck with.

In three weeks she was going to have to be ready leave this school and travel around this country, with a bunch of girls who had more 'practical' gifts prattled on and on about how their crafting skills with braiding glamours into people's hair would get them a fahhhbulous stylist's job. Or something along those lines. Not about how to do spells better, because for pity's sake what if one of them stood out as women.

Her heart sank a little at that, because really she couldn't blame some of those girls for thinking like that. No one wanted to give the government half a reason to 'step in again' after what'd happened. There had been stories passed around the schools about the raids that had taken place. About what the schools had been accused of, and what'd really happened and who had been shot by the police.

Tourmaline bit her lower lip for a moment, thinking about checking on what she had been able to secretly obtain (either steal or store away) in the months since Lammas. There was her expanded magekit that she'd had to trade dearly to one boy with a skill in metalworking to get the boxes made in shop class. They each looked like thermos and screwed together to make the little compartments that held all of the small spell casting items.

One was going to be stuffed with ribbons, hairpins, charged perfume oils, waters and cremes. Maybe a few glyphs written on the outside and a mirror put into the lid. Finding a compact mirror now would be easier than some of the things she'd had to dig up.

The other had an actual survival kit in it, along with a condensed and miniaturized version of an Academic mage kit. Herbs, charged ritual oils and waters, powdered semi-precious stones, and several empty vials for mixing things in. That one lay wrapped in the bottom of the pack in the closet and stay buried inside of her suitcase with the false bottom, along with the wig, knit cap, two pairs of jeans, first aid kit with LOTS of bandages, and men's shirts that fit her from the bins of clothes some kids left behind when they decided they weren't going to become mages.

She wanted to dig through everything again and check over it one last time, but something itching between her shoulder blades was telling her no.

The suitcase with the false bottom was carefully wedged into her locker, hiding the backpack and it's mage kit inside. There was still a few more things to get, like good sturdy sensible shoes.

In three weeks her group would leave for their Journeymanship. In four weeks, Tour planned to be halfway across the desert somewhere. A girl mage couldn't travel safely on her own anymore. A boy could however, and it wasn't uncommon for boys to show up at a school or master's house that weren't expecting them.

Everything was going to depend on her, Tourmaline Pasternak, not getting caught passing as a boy.

Current Mood: rushed

Along the side of the road irrigation pipes hovered over the fields that whizzed past as the red red rattling truck drove on. From her perch in the back of that truck, if she unfocused her eyes a little, Tourmaline thought she could imagine a giant spider's web of those pipes and move hovering above the land. It was a better thing to think about than what she was going to have to do in a few minutes.

She sighed and did her best to look at the driver of the truck without moving her head. It had been not that long since the rough cut farmer had picked her up on the other side of town. He'd just been coming back from Phoenix to pick up seeds, sacks of which were making up some padding for whenever they hit a bump in the road. Picking up one of those weirdo mage boys to give em a lift near to their next destination. Along the way out here, just from listening to him talk up the area, she'd learned his name was Bradley, his wife was Nella and that they grew alfalfa mostly, but a few plots were veggies as well. He'd been told that there was a farmhouse out of town about ten miles where a boy named 'Jonah' was expected to be by tonight, and that the boy was out on his traditional walkabout, only that he'd been too broke for his own vehicle and had no parents or really close relatives left.

The guy seemed nice enough, but for the last ten minutes, there had been this creeping sensation crawling all over her, even if there were no pings in her shields at least magically... Glamours though.. The slight tricks she had used might not have been enough. Hair wasn't a problem, it was all pinned up tight under a wig, under a knit woolen hat and pinned like a mother. Shuffling a little, and deciding that the chest bindings under the wifebeater and denim shirt still felt secure, Tourmaline made up her mind. Leaning forward, she knocked on the rear window and waited for the man to slide it open, getting into a crouch. "I think the farmhouse's coming up."

That was a lie, but Brad wouldn't have to know that. She raised her arm up to point at someplace coming up in the distance. There was no farmhouse really in the first place, at least not one close to the road, unless you counted two miles of gravel, rocks, and growing bushes as a road.

"That so?" Brad looked over to the side and squinted at a pair of buildings that hung at the end of a long driveway, the red of the barn towering over the squat brown brick farmhouse. For a moment, Tour waited, heart hammered in her chest as she wondered if she was going to have to jump for it from the moving truck. It began to slow down as the brake was applied and she almost let out a sigh of relief.

First part of this was done, now for round two, she thought, casting another glance towards the driveway that was coming up. Just for a moment, she thought about cracking her mental shields open and getting an emotional taste of whatever was on this man. That would have been an invasion though, of a kind. Still... It was the only way to be sure. Opening the thick shields was a little like peeling plastic wrap from the inside of a bubble, in the fraction of a second there was a symphony of input pouring in and focused on the man in the driver's seat. As the truck began to slow down, there was concern, yes and a hint of...avarice, slightly bitter and metallic. He wanted something, and if it was this high on his emotions, there was only one other person around for him to take from.

The trouble was it was only a hint of avarice, and for all she knew it could only be him wanting someone to be a farmhand up at his place or for his fields to be as rich as the ones that they were pulling up alongside of. Better not to risk it at this point. Still, as the truck pulled to a stop twenty feet past the driveway for this farm, some of her own worries eased.

"You gonna be alright there? Y'haven't said much for the last few miles."

"Just got a lot on my mind, sir." She replied in a voice that was a little heavier and deeper than her own true one. "Thanks for the lift."

"You're welcome kid." Brad beamed from the driver's seat and shook Tour's hand, "You've got a lot of grit to be out here doing this on your own."

"Gonna need it if I wanna be a full adult Mage." There may have been some grinning on her part from that statement, and she ducked her head under the mismatched grey wool of her knit cap. "Be seein' ya."

"See ya."

Walking up towards the farmhouse, Touramline listened for the sound of tires going off in the distance amid all the other sounds and counted off under her breath. After ten seconds she allowed herself a glance to see if the truck was still working itself back up to speed down the road. When thirty seconds had passed and the truck was no more than a plume of dust and exhaust, she picked up the speed.

She was on private property and this man might be the kind that owned a shotgun and not much in the way of patience with trespassers. Running through the field in the twilight of evening, her heart hammering in her chest, Tourmaline cleared the last 50 yards of shooting distance from the house and kept going, listening to the world singing around her as she ran with a heavily packed army backpack thumping on her back.

Milliways wasn't all bad, in some respects.

Sometimes in the early autumn evenings, there was a spot by the lake with a large rock that made for an excellent place to meditate..or to practice yoga or something similar. Some mages really didn't give eight pounds of rat crap about physical health, while others such as Tourmaline were a little more pragmatic about things. Sometimes you could multitask during them, such as she was crouching carefully on the gravel and breathing slowly as her eyes focused slowly onto a point just above the ground in front of her.

Half a second before the first tiny glowing white wisp of light rolled into existence, soon joined and rolled together with another until it became a little globe of white foxfire roughly the size of a golf ball.

"Oh come on now..."

Damnit, all of that and it was still the size of a goddamn golfball.

Nevada Dessert, abandoned reservation... unnamed mage school.

Some bit her lip looking at the cards in her hand before her, and then at the pile between her and Cinder on the bed. Tour had insisted that they room together and at first..well, she'd been afraid of Cinder at first. She had red scales, claws and always used to tease her so much, and still did sometimes. The draconic girl had suggested playing cards for a while until it was lights out, since R.C. was busy trying to get to know one of the three new kids who'd come in.

The other two, the tree-mage kid, and the teenager who was the adopted daughter of Mage Bear Hug hadn't been interested. Rex had wanted to hang around with Mage Nettle in the garden and Clary just wanted to get a decent wifi and television signal with her rig.

"Gyreing a Duchess to change from twonsie to thricewise!" Some declared, laying the card on top of the pile as Cinder wrinkled her nose and swore.

"Damnit! Hedgering card-" The larger girl with black hair sat up, looking back towards the hall just before the shouting came from Tourmaline's room.

"What is it, what's she shouting about?" Some asked, holding her cards to her chest and pulling her white hair behind her head to try and listen. Cinder just shook her head and looked back, "She's shouting something about politicians....ha! manxome duchess!"

"Oh, yeah she was listening to some kind of televised vote..."

There was the sound of a door slamming just then, but the girls just continued their game as Tourmaline stalked down the hallway, and down the stairs to the basement and Winecask's room. The woman brewed her own liquors and had several valid medical licenses, one of which had it's own very off-limits room in the green house.

"Cask? I need to trade something with you."

There were fucking protocols to asking any mage who grew cannibis, legally or otherwise. Alcohol they could deal and sell in batches equally, some schools even fully funded themselves with it. But pot, pot could get them in SO much fucking trouble in a school.

...that got Cask's attention in a hurry, Tour was welcome to the brews she made without asking, but the fact was that the one Mastery Mage in this school didn't drink unless things absolutely necessetated it.

-------------------------

"What're you doing, Delos?" RC asked as he wandered back slowly.

"Shhh," The larger piggish teen turned around, pushing a finger to his lips as the voices talking in the basement carried. Not that it mattered, the voices stopped talking down below, soon followed by someone's footsteps, and then the owner of them. "Going for a walk kids, RC, Delos. I'll be back later."

She just had to disappear for a bit, Tour thought, fingering the silver spoon she'd taken from the Bar and turned into a pendant. And make sure none of the kids got any funny ideas about that broken shack a mile from the school.

...Is one who might have more scars, but less baggage.

Not that long ago, Tourmaline did promise that she would get around to helping Charles Xavier if she could with his shields and mind-walking. It's been two days of roughly living in a spare set of clothes provided by Bar, and getting much needed rest..and cleaning. Metaphysically cleaning up, something of killing those two hunters had stuck to her, and needed to be peeled off and sterilized. Repeatedly.

But that's been the time, and she's got a little bit before she has to head back and deal with the rest of what is shaping up to be a very fate-touched trip. She's a mage that keeps promises and it tempts Fate to leave with business unfinished. There's a note left for Charles at the Bar in the morning, and by noon she's gotten the room cleaned up to the best of the needs. There's tea, not english tea, but an herbal blend for the exercise, and a little cooler of cold juices.

It's not like she's nervous at all, Tour's had to deal with Late Boomers before, and children with mage fever. This is just a similar sort of situation.

There'd been something fishy about the state border toll station the moment Tour pulled the bus up. Ever Last, that damned young idiot guard assigned to her school from the Unicorn's court had insisted on traveling with her on the pick up for the two other teachers for the school. Winecask had provided her own transportation for moving out to the remote Nevada school, but Mage Master Bramble and Dedicate Bearhug didn't have that kind of fluid income lying around. Her announcement that she had to go and pick these two up came to everyone at the school, Ever Last had insisted that he come with her as an honor guard. An HONOR guard, the little idiot was barely half her age, and even for a unicorn with enough sense to spell himself human, he still let out too many hints that he was anything but! Whose honor was he trying to protect? His?!

At least she could trust Celadine to run the school while she was gone picking them up. She was a dream mage and one of the best therapists Tour could ask for and trust. Bones of gods, the kids really needed therapy after what they'd been through before her.

Usually the back roads were less frequented by hunters, there was just too much ground to cover to hit every back road and they had bigger fish to fry. That's how things had worked for the last few decades. It'd worked pretty well, honestly.

The first sign that something was wrong was that there was only one lane open at the tolls, besides the instant pass lane. Just one. And just one man operating the booth inside, whose smile made her skin prickle up. It'd been too wide, and in that stubble covered mouth there were human teeth showing, the normal number of them present...but too many teeth shown. Ever seemed to pick up on this as well, and idiot he was it showed openly. His eyes narrowed and she nearly wanted to slap the idiot when he let out a snort.

She bit her lip as the bus pulled away from the toll, and tried not to grind her teeth, "Ever, so help me stars, don't leave you dare get out of your sea-."

The bus rocked slightly as someone attached themselves to her half-opened window and tried to wedge inside with a knife to her face. It was the man from the toll booth, grinning now with his service cap off and armed to the teeth when she looked at him, hands not leaving the steering wheel. As much as Tour wanted to swear, she had to stay calm, rest her thoughts on that bubble of cold logic for a moment. This was a Hunter, capital letter warranted. He had shed the uniform of the toll worker, pray the gods whichever soul he'd taken that from, in favor of something more ambitiously agressive. A chest strap of various knifes, aside from the musebone knife he was holding to her face was over his chest, with a vest strapped with more blades and darts, two swords from one hip and a golden tattoo over his forehead. It looked like a crown, someone's terribly stylized take on celtic design, with clear break in the front.

"Hand over the unicorn, hedgewitch, and you can walk away..." The hunter's breath stank and she couldn't even deny what Ever was as she looked up into the mirror. The idiot was already changing out of human form to...was he planning to FIGHT as a UNICORN? On a moving bus?

The hunter's eyes flicked over as well, the change wasn't as quick as Ever hoped it'd be, and the deranged man licked his lips. "He's not worth as much as you are..."

"Ever, get back..." The hunter's eyes were entirely on Ever who was making to charge. Tour glared at Ever a moment before flicking out the sawed off shotgun she kept loaded with lead, iron and salt strapped to the side of her seat and firing at the hunter. Of course it didn't hit, the fucker only laughed when the shot busted up the muse bone knife and climbed up to the top of the bus. He was on something, selkie blood or in this area maybe satyr horn powder. She hissed between her teeth and tucked the gun down, shifting the bus into a higher gear.

The change of clattering hooves to the slap of naked human feet on the floor behind her made her turn around just a little to look behind her. Well he was fast changing for a unicorn, she'd grant him that much, but Ever was still bound and determined to FIGHT. His clothes hadn't come with this change back to human and now there was a buck-ass naked young man behind her grabbing a scimitar from his things. Thumps came from the roof as the hunter moved around up there, and knives sank through the metal roof of the bus with each new anchor he stabbed for himself.

"Ever, sit down!" She snapped at the young warrior again as he tried opening up one of the windows to..to..WAS HE TRYING TO FIGHT THE HUNTER ON THE ROOF OF HER BUS? NAKED? That...that was enough foolishness, and she floored the gas pedal after shifting to the highest gear the bus had. The speedometer climbed up past forty now, and she snarled at the unicorn with the voice of a drill sergeant. "EVER LAST, you will SIT DOWN AND BUCKLE UP NOW."

He'd gotten halfway out of the window and looked back at her plainly startled as the bus rattled picking up speed. Whatever he'd been expecting from her, that wasn't it, and when she shot him a venomous glare he quickly dropped the sword back into the bus and did as he was told.

"You two think you're going to get away?" The hunter was taunting her from the roof now. Yes, he was definitely ON SOMETHING. She didn't know which clan he was from, but most of the organized clans kicked people's heads in for using on a hunt, and even more for taunting. No one would miss this one, she thought grimly, as the speedometer pushed past sixty with the engine complaining slightly.

"No," She answered softly, though the hunter couldn't hear her. The click from the seatbelt fastening behind her was the last sign she needed before she slammed on the brakes with a lurch and a scream of tires. The jolt threw her forward, into the straps holding her in and nearly into the windshield. She could hear Ever whimper as the straps cut into him as well and the knives disappeared from above them, followed by the figure of the hunter. Who had not been strapped in. Becoming airborne, if only very temporarily and very surprised at this sudden development. Tour couldn't see what happened after that, her head was somewhere inside of the driver's wheel and she was panting as the body hit the asphalt in the road ahead of them with a sickening crunch.

"No. I'm going to hurt you with physics." She muttered under her breath as Ever gulped behind her and she pulled the bus back into gear and to speed again. The man had threatened her and a young idiot in her care. Hunters didn't stop until they were dead. Ever was staring at her as she drove the bus forward over the prone figure, with two bumps to the suspension of the bus. The young unicorn looked green, actually ready to vomit when she stopped the bus some 10 feet away, and unbuckled herself from the driver's seat. He hadn't been prepared either.

"....come on. We'd better bury him."

----------------

It took the better part of an hour. Digging the grave and stripping the hunter of all that he carried. Mostly because Ever kept throwing up, but they got the hunter buried away from the road. And after that they were back on their way through Northern Minnesota, to go through one of the state parks. The weapons got stored in a lead chest and locked with seven locks, none of which anyone had the key to but her. She'd burn them all first chance she got. There was no saving the metals. More plans about what to do were running through Tour's still nervous brain before she caught on that Ever was coughing, or attempting to do so politely.

"...yes, Last?"

"...have...you...I mean..."

"...if you're asking about what happened back there..I've only had to kill in self-defense twice before in my life."

"...oh."

"Get some rest. And for the sake of your dreams, get dressed."

Current Mood: guilty
Current Location: Northern Minnesota
Current Music: Time has come today

No human story has ever started in a void, some have ended, and some have crossed the void, but none have started there and none ever will.

Pathfinder school is not one well known in the upper crusts of Mage life. Such lofty figures as high mage council members, or the master mages, would say it is hardly worth of any note. Save that at it's start, during the time when all magic was well in danger of dying out in the US, it managed to produce some of the strongest members of the renewal of magic stability. It was not the school itself that produced the first white wizard in nearly a century and a half, alongside of the first white mage. They had been BORN with such powers and gifts, it was no credit of the school that they had become great.

The sun elf courtiers would argue that the school had harbored monsters, and saved their prince from the curse of his selfish mother. Usually both in the same sentence, and never sure which side to take, nearly in whispers. Their cousins in the lunar courts would say nothing in the matter, save that one of the duchesses would smile, opal eyes crinkling in amusement if Pathfinder came up.

And if you asked one of the former students, with black obsidian hair, she would say that she'd named the school herself. Another would say, in his own soft drawl, that he'd brought the rocks that had built that school. And finally, if you asked the white mage, a young woman for 50 years and still running, she'd tell you quite frankly that if it hadn't been for that school, she would have died young, and you'd be better off asking the Head Mistress, if you could find her.

And if you could find the Head Mistress, haunting somewhere in the gullies and canyons around the school, she tell you that the idea for the school had started the day she'd started living out of her bus. If you didn't bother to ask her further, you'd get no more.

But.

If you asked, when or how did the school itself actually start, in the chaos of the world's swing back into balance, the upheaval of the hunter gangs in the United States, the fall of the most recent dark wizard cabal in nearly 600 years, and the magic rights riots.. She'd stop, look at you, and sit down to tell you that everything for the school by her own accounts, started one night in the desert, when she was still a wandering teacher mage and on her yearly route around the country.

And she would tell you the whole story of what happened.

==========================================

Where the point went, that was the route she had to take, Tourmaline told herself as her neck prickled up on the lonely stretch of desert highway, in the middle of the clear starry night. It was reflex to reach up and feel for the point of the gemstone in the necklace, the one she shared a name with. Not fifteen minutes ago she'd seen something flash and crackle into the sky, and if it was more than ten miles out she'd buy a bottle of whiskey. And if it hadn't come from the Jet Strike mage school, it'd get fed to Ernie, the air Elemental who was for the moment, whistling questions rapidly at her from his favorite perch in the visor fan.

She had learned 20 years ago to never ignore when the point of that necklace swung a certain way during a navigation pit stop. The ride to pick up the Softeye kid from Clayridge school seemed like it could wait the few hours it'd take her to swing out towards Jet Strike school. Nothing against the kid, but Topaz Softeye was a giant pokkelidjer on the mage council. His kid had been decent, and married decently, though she hadn't kept up on the details of it, when they died, their kid went to Topaz and that was the last she'd heard about it until two days ago.

The polite 'request' had come from her last school stop, phoned in from on high, by the council to her. Her job as a a wandering mage to was to either find new students who'd been born into non-mage families and give them enough of an education so they wouldn't blow themselves up, or to cart around the mage students when they'd need to get transferred to a new school. Usually when she'd have to pick up kids, it was for more than just one student. She wasn't the only wandering mage to boot, and the order'd come specifically for her to pick up the kid. Not someone else, just her.

Given that the senior Softeye had done his damnedest to keep her from getting a full mastery. Tour wasn't taking any bets that he hadn't decided to squeeze her just a little, and abuse his position a bit. There was no interest in improving that situation with him from her end either. Far as she was concerned, she'd do her job well and he could just go suck an egg. He had two masteries above her, and was working on his fourth, to him, she was just the lowest level and the scraping of the barrel.

That suited Tour just fine. She had bigger problems, like what'd caused that flash up ahead.

Her bus lurched over a hole in the gravel road and a few seconds before it showed in her lights, an image flashed in her eyes. Swearing, and hand over hand the wheel got pulled sharply to the right, swinging the cumbersome vehicle to a stop, just as the lights did flash upon a giant boar with a pale little girl riding on it's back.

"....wandering path where have you brought me.." Tour murmured looking out the window as the boar skidded to a stop, and tried to back up away from the bus. It didn't get far before the girl riding slid of it's nose, crumpling onto the ground. The giant snout nudged at the girl worriedly before the beast's shape started to shake and melt away. From where she stood in the bus, it looked terribly painful, as everything shook away leaving behind an awkward young man...well...mostly a man, he still had a slightly porcine face and tusks, and bristly hairs. He was trying to help the girl up, get her away from the bus as Tourmaline got out and walked towards them.

"You snap those tusks at me, you're going to get your mouth hexed shut for an hour." Tour snapped, trying to keep her voice calm and even, though her nerves were rattling and her skin itched with a familiar sensation. Someone, either the beast or the girl it could've been either of them, had enough magic in them to fry her and the bus to kingdom come. And both of them were teenagers, you didn't get more volatile mood swings than being magic and in puberty. The girl was too pale, with white hair, and as Tour knelt to look at her her eyes were too pale grey by half. Her clothes were definitely too rich to be a runaway's...and there were the telling marks that she was a mageling student, the glyphs sewn into her pack and the hem of her jacket for safe travel. She was far, far too young to be traveling by herself though, barely into 12 years old at a guess.

The porcine young man had shut his mouth to stare at her..and the poor sod didn't have a thread of clothing left on him, and he was trying desperately to cover himself up with a tumbleweed. He was easily, by Tour's guess, five years the girl's senior, but had on a brass collar around his neck. It looked old greek, but that could've been faked.

There was a way to be sure that the little girl was mage-raised. Any mageling school taught got the lesson in their first year, you NEVER shared your birth name with strangers, just your mage name.

"I am named Tourmaline...what named you?"

"...I was named Somebody."

Tour raised an eyebrow, that wasn't ambiguous at all. The girl, tear-stained noticed this and gulped continuing.

"...Somebody Softeye."

Shit. At least she managed to keep her face neutral. This stank of more magic and mayhem then she'd see in most years, just right here. In for a penny...

"...well. Come on then mageling Softeye...I'm Tourmaline Wander, your ride."

General timeline of Mage development

mageling 8 to age 16-18, journeymanship 16-19, Journeyman education 3 years starting ages 17-20 / 5 years if into direct apprenticeship, Accredited Mage tests age 20-25 (can recieve either medallion or tattoo to prove accredation), MASTERY a big hairy ordeal to become one of the higher ranked mages general proof of this is in the form of a familiar.

Mage Mastery: A ranking usually undertaken by mages for a single particular element which they excel in. Familiars are elementals that the mage approaching mastery must battle, convince, trick or impress into working with them. They provide a sort of extra boost to future spells and workings. Sometimes after Mastery mages are so improved in their powers that they could be compared to being 'small specialist wizards'. Some mages collect masteries, though the most in recorded history for the mages is someone having 4 familiars. One does have to take care of the familiar and make sure they are a part of the 'group/pack/partnering'. Most mages only have one and devote their lives to living with that one.

Blood Working: A whole other thing than mages whose elemental tendencies are aligned with blood. A blood mage is someone who at a touch or a look can do a diagnosis of someone's health, nutritional level, and state of well being in general with training. Blood working is where fresh blood is the primary or only component of a working. There are a scant handful of blood workings that are not inherently harmful to either practitioner or donor and these are done with explicit consent from all parties involved. The rest are viewed with the same level of disgust and disdain by civilized mages the world over as pedophilia and for the main reason of lack of consent from the donor party. They're dangerous and unfortunately for mages one of the ways a non-mage can get a rise to power enough to chain or do something truly horrible.

The untrained blood workings are generally done with no research except too many viewings of supernatural horror movies and possibly one of those books on 'satanism' floating around. One reason why this terrifies mages is because taking the power of someone's life can give someone magical power, it's like seeing a small child wave around high explosives and a flamethrower. A small angry, bitter child who wants to see someone suffer even worse than their first victim. There's another reason why their viewed as horrible, and that's because done improperly they can become addictive. The interconnectiveness of blood also applies because that liquid is literally a small part of yourself. Please think on the magical consequences of that. You may grow that part back, but you're still going to end up connected at strong magic level to whatever you put the blood into without protection.

Even mages who have elemental leanings in dealing with death find blood magic repulsive and horrible. Though for them it's more along the lines of 'having seen someone smear feces on the Mona Lisa'.

Elemental creatures: Extremely strange and harder to find as they can 'cloak' themselves in their element. The older breeds are harder to find, and elemental magic being what it is, each element is always finding new forms of life to work itself into. Usually elemental creatures are intelligent and at the very least capable of understanding human speech. Mostly they don't care much for humans, which is understandable given how much that species has fucked them up in recent centuries.
Elemental creatures will ofcourse, stick close to areas where their element is strongest. Fire general sticks to volcanos, forest fires, or the insides of electrical power plants, you get the idea. Some elementals crossbreed, resulting in interesting hybrids such as air/fire, or fire/earth. Most commonly the hybrid you're likely to find is earth/water in swamps. Their appearances vary so widely that is difficult if not impossible to find two that look enough alike. Mages think that their appearances and bodies have little to do with genetic breeding.
Before the industrial revolution, elemental familiars had a rough lifespan ranging from 150-600 years depending on their size. Some of the bigger ones do still exist! In recent centuries though that number has been halved, due to pollution and in many cases habitat loss. Conservation efforts for them are difficult seeing as they cloak themselves in their own element so effectively that it takes a certain chemical cocktail for a bone-standard human to even realize that they're there.

Mage Schooling: When you've got a person who could when they get upset or distracted accidentally turn the couch into a bonfire, it is a good idea to see if they can learn how to STOP DOING THAT. Or even better start using that fire in a more productive manner. And for that you need schooling, which can be at a highly specialized school or in a more generalized and well rounded larger school. Schools of magelings can vary from groups of two or three students learning and living with a single instructor to larger dormitory schools with 91(maximum) students and thirteen mages with a few dormitory overseers. Sutdents are expected to live in the dormitories and keep them clean, but also to help with the chores around the school. Meals are eaten communally and depending on the culture of the school, bathing can also be done as such, though there is chaperoneing and split baths for boys and girls. Students also live in these schools very nearly year round with quarterly breaks of 2 weeks to come home to family.

One thing has been changing in recent years, much to some older mages disappointment.

In many older schools the principles of mage crafting were taught to every student. This provided them with a practical and confidence building aspect in the learning process. Whatever objects a mageling student created, it was infact theirs to keep or sell/trade at magic market festival days, generally held at the equinoxes and solstices. While their tuition is generally paid by their own contribution towards keeping the school running and clean in chores and the tuition fees paid by their parents in these larger schools, the mageling's own mad money often came from what they could help create for market. A young fire mage might be taught how to seal some of the heat from his fires into spices for cooking or oils for bathing. An earth inclined mages could create things for the garden, seedlings enchanted for sturdiness and growth or planting containers, or wooden charms for home protection. The base age for being able to go trading is age 13 for some obvious reasons. Students younger than this would find their works marked and recieve the compensation in either cash or bonus goods brought back to the school to keep it running.

Council-registered mage schools are defined under US law as a religious group and are tax exempt. Schools unregistered with the school have to either be independantly wealthy/talented, or exploiting loopholes to survive. Unregistered schools are also a mixed bag and while not abusive in any way (The council wouldn't deem them fit to survive in they did and you don't want the near-wizards getting it into their head that you have DONE BAD BAD THINGS AND NEED TO BE STRIPPED OF ALL POWER NOW)

Mage Councils: There is no international mage council, though communications between the national ones are quite common. The highest ranked mages for honor and ability are on the mage council for the Americas as it's a requirement to have a Mage Mastery to even think of joining the group. This is the body that governs which schools get finanical funding and accreddation from their coffers as well as scholarships for younger mages, or those not born into mage families. (Note: these scholarships only apply to registered schools.) And when we say governs, it does also bring all of the political bullshit along with it. Mages found of crimes according to magekind are generally dealt with immediately by other mages or council mages. This ranges from Stripping of Powers to geas and curses with specific learning clauses...and it's done as quickly as possible before the offending mage in question is found by the government.

The Mage Council is currently made up mostly of mages who survived/escaped the McArthy inquisition era. They have long memories and do not want their culture coming back into the spotlight again anytime soon.

Mageling: A young mage, pre-journeymanship, generally between the ages of 8 and 18. Sometimes used as a derogatory term for someone who 'did not complete their journeyman ship properly/missed the whole point of it'.

Late Boomer: An untrained mage found after the age of 18.

Changeling: The most polite way Tour has for a general call of 'mixed heritage' usually mixed human/nonhuman, or mixed nonhuman species, as odd as they are. This includes demi-gods or the offspring of demigods.

Mage: the middle area of magic users, able to use naturally occuring forces and sources of magic to create intended effects with some measure of their own magic power. Not able to change mountains on their own generally, but as a group of like-element or complimentary element mages will do some things to great effect. Can be any religion, mostly dieist (some of them have gods interested in them, some of them have spirits who find their company enjoyable, so it's hard to disprove gods when they occaissionally show up for nachos and poker). Can be good, bad or neutral. Slightly longer or shorter lifespan than a standard human, depending on the training/use of their abilities. Mage talent can be found running in family lines, but it also can be found occuring in random individuals... Human mages are currently the most common kind, but considering there's 6 billion humans and a few million tops of the other species... Well. The odds are the same no matter what kind of limbs you're born with.

Wizard: If mages use a single candle for their powersource, wizards are like the hearts of volcanos or fusion reactors. They make their own magical energy and lots of it, what swag they use isn't to bring power to them generally so much as mold the power flowing from them into a certain shape or force. These guys, when of higher powers can actually create things out of raw matter. We're talking creatures, living furniture/buildings, endless buffets of snacks... Three well-known varieties. White(generally nice, some bad/cruel ones, usually towards the healing/amping area, been low population for a few centuries), Black/dark(the ones who have no qualms about killing someone/thing for parts for an event. Not all bad, but the really nasty ones are the ones who make the news) and Greys/neutrals(inbetween, some healing amping, some darker magic, not as common as either). The strongest mages could be considered weaker wizards. Wizards have a lifespan roughly four to five times the human average, but a drawback in this is that they have a very low birthrate, paired with a small population. One doesn't have to be BORN into one of these to become a wizard of any type, and it's generally considered in good taste to educate any young ones found in a sort of mentor/student event. Same odds for various species, if much smaller odds than mages.

Shamans: divine/genetic magic component. Generally ancestor/diety/element based. Highly uncommon, bordering on rare in recent days, though an upswing has started since the 1960's.

Journeymanship: You remember the entire reason Kiki the Witch left home? To spend a year away from home and hone her skills. Well a journeymanship is a cross between that and a walk-about. Magelings save away for this like some people save for college, and the earliest age they do this at is at 16. Some pick out routes and places they want to go to, but they do this knowing that there won't be any guarantee that they'll get to those places. Sadly, some also miss the entire point of this exercise and make trips so rigorously planned and safety netted that they often retard their own abilities. Sadly, trips like these are becoming more and more common, especially with the parents.

Hunters: A trained job, these guys are the bogeymen that magic sapients warn their children about. Any species, any age, any gender, just a ruthlessness about killing someone for parts to sell on the black market. Knowledgeable about given forms of magic prey, most tend to prey on muses, since their species has so MANY highly useable parts. Also a tendency to take on names and themes of prevelent folkstories, fairytales, and characters from classic/popular children's fiction. Titles can be passed down master to apprentice, there's only one Red Riding Hood at any one time, but there's been at least 18 different Red Riding Hoods during the past 200 years. Hard but not impossible to kill one-on-one. Sadly, only the most insane/talented are solo acts, and they tend to hunt in packs with established territories with rivalries between clans. There is one boss of the many gangs/clans present, and he's been slightly insane for the past 90 years. Doesn't look a day over 20, according to what Tour's heard.

1) Mages and mage schools have been a somewhat publicly accepted institution in the world for the past 200 years, but as recently as 400 years ago, a sharp decline took place. One part was the religious inquisition, one part was 'the age of reason/realism' and one part genocide.

2) It's 2009, and the prior president was a black man. The current is a white male, somewhat reasonable but not-so-subtle fundamentalist connections.

3) There are at current count 2 acknowledged sapient species in the US. Humans and 'muses'. the second is not to be confused with the classical greek myth figures. In other countries, such as Japan, the count is much higher, but these other species are in a rapidly dwindling minority. 'Muses' are capable of interbreeding with humans, but are lower in status than even freed slaves were, and while it is not entirely legal to deal in muses, the slave trade with them is still going on. There's a higher market for 'wild' muse sub-species.

4) Muses, while looking rather similar to depictions of angels, are in fact closer in their type to mammalians. They have live births, nurse their young, and are mid-ground omnivores. The diets and habits change with cultures and sub-species.

5) Magic rights is a hot topic for many nations, England being the closest to having a decent system in place, France following behind, with Japan taking third. In the US there are often riots and demonstrations that have been going on, off and on since the sixties.

6)The main reasons that muses are considered a somewhat valuable commodity are these. Their organs can be used as universal transplants with humans. Their blood is a well documented intoxicant/hallucinogen in the right dose/blend with herbs and juice.

7) The aforementioned genocide was part of the inquisition, but also from another group. Not much info can be gain about Hunters, but they've basically existed for easily 600 years, in not more. The past 400 years however, they've had a rough sort of truce with mages, namely 'you are not worth hunting, we are not worth bothering'. there are signs however, that this has changed...

8) Wizards do exist, but they tend to be more on the level of power of say...a sorceror from the Belgariad, and they're very rare in the population...one in 4 million, there may be as few as 90 world wide, or as many as a thousand. They don't talk much with ordinary people and really consider most governments to be temporary things. Being extremely long-lived has that effect on one's view of government. There will be more information on them later.

9) There is a thriving market for magic and mage-made items. It's not always legal these days, and it's what keeps barter alive as a form of currency. Craft mages still make a good living here. A wood-working mage can live reasonably well for a year off of a few months of hard work in the shop, wether by selling through a dealer in the regular world, or by trading for the goods and animals he might need for food during the year.

10) For the past ten years, it's been a slow build up in the magical background noise of the world. 6 months ago the noise reached it's peak to the point where anyone with the slightest hint of ability to sense it had the unconcious sensation of having a motorized toothbrush (or other similarly jarring noise) being close to their ear. 4 months ago it suddenly stopped.

1) She is not immediately trusting. Vague details at first for the first few meetings

2) Due to a religious/spiritual belief, you will not get her birthname, and should someone say it that she does NOT know, they are immediately blacklisted. If she truly, intimately trusts someone, they might get to know that name.

3) She's a trained master-mage, which means she's in the upper levels for talent and knowledge. It's a higher degree in the mages group, the closest cultural equivilant is a doctorate, but with a modern world it doesn't count for much in the job market.

4) She is not that strong of a mage, she knows it, and while it might come up, it's a sore subject for her. "Other mages have pools of power they can draw from immediately. I've got a creek about two feet wide and eight inches deep on a good day."

5) Tourmaline will 87% of the time be dressed in hippie desert rat style. Sturdy boots, hand embroidered denim everything, and sometimes a hair-scarf.

6) She adores tea and has a collection of various teapots, her favorites being the chinese clay pots. This stems mostly from the fact that coffee nearly always gives her heartburn and an upset stomach.

7) Since her primary education during the grand heydey of hippie education doesn't account for much, Tour makes most of her money dealing in rare manuscripts and bartering for goods while on the road. She has just as much junk as anyone else, but it's spread out over 49 states.

8) When Tour smokes, it's generally because of something stressful happening with either her students or her own situation. If she orders fancy specialty tea, she's in a fairly good mood. If things are REALLY bad, as in 'new graves' bad, she will look for much harder things, starting with alcohol and working her way up(or down)

9) The closest term for her sexual identity is Neutrois, and tends to be midly physically/aesthetically attracted to femme-types, and forms mostly romantic bonds in those attractions. There is not currently anyone in her life, the teaching comes first. She's just not that interested in what you folks DO under the covers, y'all can do what you like, provided it doesn't harm or kill anybody.

10) If you refer to her school as a Hogwarts, she will have her revenge on you in a way you will not see coming.